Doctors' strike? What do you think?

[Solopower]

I think it's gong to be on 21 June, unless they can negotiate a solution with the NHS Employers' organisation (whoever they are).

Are they right to strike to protect their pensions?

What a load of crap Josephine

Daily Mail propaganda.

What a load of crap HilaryM

Guardian propaganda.

If 1.7 million NHS employees leave the NHS then there who will look after all the patients?

New NHS workers who are happy to work for the revised pay and conditions?

Josephine, I do pay them out of my own pocket. I'm a tax payer.

Do I expect others who think otherwise to pay too? For as long as we have the NHS, yes, 'fraid so.

When it's gone, then our taxes will go towards mopping up the messes made by the private companies and paying for the law suits.

I support them

this made me larf

'New NHS workers' Who will be conveniently pre-trained to do all the various health professionals roles?

ggirl

Good doctors give their heart and soul to the service of others. They work incredibly hard to qualify, then unbelievably hard for decades on end to keep people in good health.

But hey, it's the Jubilee weekend, so let's instead lavish millions of public and private money on celebrating the life of a pampered woman who was simply born into a sickening level of uncountable riches, privilege and status. Yeah, she works for it now, but as hard as a doctor? I doubt it. Not to mention her extensive, overprivileged family.

In the midst of a recession, when ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet, it makes no sense to begrudge hardworking doctors a decent pension whilst frittering scarce public cash on the Queen.

Ggirl, brilliant!

I am district nurse and the GPs I work with deserve every penny

meant to add ..of their pensions

they may 'deserve it' but there is no money to pay for it, unless even more money is borrowed - who then pays it back? People without the cosy pensions, that's who!
There is no 'pension pot' like a magic porridge pot, as teachers and doctors seem to think. There is contribuitons, whch are invested (in those nasty capitalist companies), and the return on the investemnt pays the pensions. So you cannot sustainably have a final pension scheme - that was just a ponzi scheme that worked for a few years - so one gerenation on pensioners benefited. Now we have to wake up the the reality - pensions are paid by the retun on investments ans when that is lower, the pension has to be lower. There is no magic porridge pot - wake up.

MrsGuyOfGisbourne of course there's enough money. The government has to decide what its priorities are.

It does seem strange that the pensions were renegotiated 5 years ago, into a form that was meant to be sustainable in the long term. What was that about?

Solopower (are you Solo, y'know, as in Solo?) - my point exactly. Except you said it far more concisely!

There is not enough money in pension funds, so you are saying the 'governemnt' should make up the shortfall - from where, exactly? Borrowing like Gordon Brown, leaving future generatiosn to pick up the tab, or from taxation of other, poorer pepple with worse pensions or no pensions?

Labour don't understand the concept of "sustainable in the long term". Nothing they do fits that description. They just spend like drunken sailors until they get voted out, then try to make out that the Tories are the "nasty" ones for trying to get things back into the black.

If there isnt enough money for public sector pensions why are different professional groups being treated differently? How can the government afford to allow civil servants, MP's, judges etc to pay less than everyone else?

I don't know. It's wrong. But the NHS employs so many people that it simply cannot go on without drastically being reformed. It's the second largest employer in the WORLD FFS.

Too many of it's employees are simply out of touch with the way the modern world is and think they are entitled to the good life forever. Well they aren't. And that isn't up for negotiation, it's simple fact.

So why did they apparently get it so badly wrong in 2008?

I don't support the strike. Doctors renegotiated themselves a brilliant pay deal a few years ago. Many GP partners are earning almost £100,000 (and some a lot more) and doesn't do out-of-hours or unsociable hours work any longer.

This NHS website outlines the average salary for other types of doctor (and doesn't include any lucrative private work consultants can do) www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=553, which often bumps up their salaries considerably.

Yes, doctors work long hours and train for many years and carry a lot of responsibility. But the same is true for many other professions. (And junior doctors don't work the long training hours they used to since implementation of the working time directive).

Obviously should read "don't do" in my second sentence above.

So why did they apparently get it so badly wrong in 2008?
Who is "they"?

The government who negotiated the 2008 pension changes.